Australian Immigration Daily News

It’s really amazing when you have a look at the reported cases coming out of the AAT and the Federal Courts.

Based on what is reported on Austlii, it surely appears that visa refusals and visa cancellations on character grounds are becoming a more and more important element of migration law practice.

Is there any way to predict the outcome?

Following the Migration Institute of Australia’s (MIA) EGM ‘wipe out’ on Friday afternoon, 8 September at 4pm in Sydney, the National President of the MIA suddenly resigned on Sunday 10 September.

Some of you may recall that I resigned from the Migration Alliance Committee a few months back without providing an explanation.    I would now like to provide that explanation, put forward a few of my insights and ideas, and then offer a proposal for the way forward.

My resignation from the MA committee

Suppose that a law enforcement agency provides material to the Department on the basis that the material be treated as confidential information.

Suppose then that the Minister has regard to that material when considering whether to cancel a visa on character grounds.

Can the Minister be required to disclose that information to a court in the context of legal proceedings brought to challenge the visa cancellation decision of the Minister? 

Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) have published statistics on latest number of invitations issued for General Skilled Migration (subclass 189/489).  The last round of invitations took place on 23 August 2017 with the next round of invitations expected take place between 6^th and 20^th September.

Some interesting facts to take away from the invitations issued on 23 August.  Approximately 1133 invitations were issued in total, with 1000 relating to subclass 189 visa.  This is consistent with the around of invitations issued in July with a slight increase in the number of invites for the 489 visas.

Overall the financial year to date demonstrates the number of invitations concerning 186/489 visas remains steady which must be a welcoming relief to many applicants waiting for the invitation.

 More information on this will be available shortly.